Enewsletter

Contents

Thank you so much for doing what you do.
I received the boxes of Why Vegan, and our tabling at
Brock University in St. Catharines, ON, Canada went FANTASTIC!
There were tons of interested people and we handed out all 600
copies! The video also drew loads of attention. It went so well
that were planning on doing tabling on March 26th and 28th
too – hopefully, the new booklets will be here by then. Ideally,
I would like to be able to give everyone at Brock U a
Why Vegan pamphlet. Send me all that you can – I will
definitely distribute them! Ive been writing a vegan column
for the Brock Press for months now, and there are a lot of people
who are really interested.
Also, you might want to suggest to tablers that they collect
vegan food packaging for display, for when people say, So
what do you eat?ML, Niagara-on-the-Lake, ON, 3/8/02

News & Announcements

Burger King Has New Vegan Burger!

Bruce "Olé" Friedrich of Peta notes that while
the official introduction is March 18th, the burger is now available
in Virginia (order without the mayo).

Antibiotics in the the April, 2002 issue of Vegetarian Times:

Recently, the editors of The New England Journal of Medicine
(NEJM) called for a ban on all non-theraputic uses of antibiotics
in agriculture. One clincher was three studies published in the NEJM
last winter on the public-health risks of pouring antibiotics into
animal feed. Researchers tested ground chicken, turkey, beef and
pork bought in supermarkets–and found that 20 percent of these grocery
staples contained deadly salmonella. Worse, 84 percent of the contaminated
samples were resistant to at least one antibiotic, and more than
half were resistant to at least three.

"[T]he pinnacle of agricultural achievement: stretching as
far as the eye can see, 26,000 chickens, with no natural light and
no fresh air and little room to run around, a computer allocating
them water and a scientifically engineered protein and energy feed.
They are just three weeks old, but are genetically selected to grow
so unnaturally fast they are three weeks from slaughter. In a never-ending
two-monthly cycle, the farm receives around 200,000 one-day old,
yellow fluffy chicks, grows the 'crop' and sends them to slaughter."

American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act

Guides to Veg Restaurants

However, our webmaster Nick Altmann points out that "Our best
bet is to encourage people to submit restaurants and become editors
for chefmoz.org. It's really a great
site, with a more robust feature set. It's also relatively unknown,
so the vegan community could have a very positive influence in building
its listings.

"If everyone on the Spam! mailing list would submit a listing
for a single restaurant or volunteer to edit (and maintain!) a single
geo-region, that'd be seriously faboo."

Again: Deadlines for Events!

Please read the
alert about what pamphlets are available and, when you write
us, be very specific about which ones you want and how many.
Please do not give us PO Boxes, as we are shipping some of them UPS.

Thanks to all those who have already registered, and all those who
have donated
in support of this great outreach event!!

An Open Heart Needs an Open Mind

Anyone who has tried to advocate a veg diet has faced people's unwillingness
to question the propaganda they have learned regarding their current
beliefs. The psychological defenses people employ vary from avoidance
to name-calling.

A common tactic is to make false claims in order to short-circuit
any debate. "These radicals care more about animals than people!"
"They want to experiment on babies instead of rats!" This
type of attack is generally successful because when done well, such
simplistic claims play on peoples emotions and trick activists
into trying to address the charge, instead of sticking to their original
point.

Not Always Our Opponents

This sort of debating can come from both sides. An example of this
is the reaction of many to the book The Skeptical
Environmentalist, by Bjorn Lomborg. Instead of debating
facts, many have reacted with belittlement and bogus claims,
calling the author a Pollyanna who would have us ignore
the degradation of the environment and put us all in peril. (One
of the larger "attacks" was on the pages of Scientific
American (not available online); see commentary
and accompanying
article from The Economist.)

The saddest aspect of these knee-jerk responses is that they miss
Lomborgs point:

We have a finite amount of resources that we can use to address
the worlds problems. Because of our limitations, if we avoid
a rational analysis, we will not be able to optimize the effects
of our action.

As stated by Lomborg in his detailed (and, unlike the SciAm
attacks, referenced) discussion:

Saying that my book is an everything-will-turn-out-fine statement
is a rhetorical and entirely misleading treatment of my book. I
point out that we should deal with environmental problems, work
to decrease air pollution even further, invest in renewable energy
research and development etc., as well as tackle the many other,
important global problems such as poverty and starvation. The point
is that I should strive to make the decisions which actually do
good and not just the ones that sound good. This requires straight
and honest analysis that is willing to challenge any however well
established myth.

Also, on p. 5 of the actual book:

However, pointing out that our most publicized fears are incorrect
does not mean that we should make no effort towards improving the
environment. Far from it.... What this information should tell
us is not to abandon action entirely, but to focus our attention
on the most important problems and only to the extent warranted
by the facts.

Or, as pointed out in Nature
by Stephen Budiansky (former Washington editor of Nature),
Lomborgs whole point is that the refusal of some environmental
activists to deal honestly with the data harms the credibility of
both environmental science and environmentalism.

A willingness to be dishonest is shown by Stephen Schneider, one
of Scientific American's anti-Lomborgians, when he told Discover
in 1989 (quoted in the Economist
editorial):

[We] are not just scientists but human beings as well. And like
most people we'd like to see the world a better place...To do that
we need to get some broad-based support, to capture the public's
imagination. That, of course, entails getting loads of media coverage.
So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic
statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have...Each
of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective
and being honest.

Where does this leave a rightfully skeptical public if a so-called
authority admits to a willingness to lie to promote his
agenda?

Vegans Arent Exempt

Even though willing to challenge the mainstream view of animals
and diet, vegans arent necessarily open-minded about all topics.
This is especially true when it comes to the propaganda regarding
veganism itself.

For example, in a previous
Spam, we referenced an article
on vegetarianism which appeared in the Washington Post.
The article is very positive towards reducing meat intake. It also
references the largest meta-study of vegetarian mortality, authored
by Key et al. (abstract).
In this study, the vegans displayed a trend (not statistically significant)
towards not living quite as long as the lacto-ovo vegetarians and
fish-eaters, with their overall mortality rates the same as regular
meat-eaters.

This finding appears to go against the mythology of veganism as
the perfect, miracle diet, and some vegans reacted towards the article
by suggesting the study was seriously flawed. While there are inevitably
confounding variables in any study on nutrition and disease, the
Key et al. study is, at this time, the most we know about vegan mortality
rates.

How can this be?

Recently, Jack Norris, RD added an introduction to his article
"Staying
a Healthy Vegan." Given that the issue of vegan health was
raised by this article, we thought it would be a good time to pass
on the introduction (which includes a brief discussion of the Key
et al. study):

Introduction

The vegan diet appears to be a relatively new experiment in the
history of human eating. It has only been since the mid-1940s that
it has been practiced in an organized fashion in the Western world.
So far, the experiment appears to be successful: vegans in developed
countries have been shown to have the same overall mortality rates
as meat-eaters with healthy lifestyles (non-smoking, low alcohol
intakes).2 These mortality rates are much lower than for the general
population. However, there are areas where vegans' health can be
improved.

This article has three purposes:

To help people make the transition to a vegan diet.

To give accurate information about the known health benefits
of a vegan diet.

To give vegans specific recommendations in order to maximize
their health both for themselves and for improving the results
of health studies on vegans.

I also wrote this article to provide information that other Vegan
Outreach members and I wish we had known when we became involved
in promoting veganism.

I was vegan for a while, but

Vegan Outreach promotes a vegan diet in order to lessen the suffering
of animals. Since the average American consumes thousands of animals
over the course of a lifetime, each person who goes vegan makes a
difference by removing their support from the factory farming and
slaughtering of these animals. For this reason, I have been involved
in vegan advocacy for over a decade.

During my years of outreach, I have been told by many people that
they tried to be vegetarian or vegan, but hadn't felt healthy. I
found this troubling. How can we prevent animal suffering by promoting
a vegan diet for our society if some people do not respond well to
it? Finding an answer to this problem was a major motivation for
me to become a registered dietitian. In researching the subject,
I discovered that some claims about the vegan diet include distortions
or omissions which can lead people to having poor experiences.

For example, some vegan advocates emphasize that humans need only
small amounts of B12 and that it can be stored in the body for years.
It is true that, at the time they become vegan, some people have
enough B12 stored in their liver to prevent serious B12 deficiency
for many years. However, people often interpret this to mean that
you only need to consume a tiny amount of B12 once every few years.
Actually, to build up such stores, it takes many years of consuming
B12 beyond one's daily needs. Many people do not have large enough
stores of B12 to be relied upon even for short periods. This is an
easy problem to solve by simply eating B12-fortified foods or taking
a supplement.

Nutritional myths have a way of going from one extreme to the other.
For example, people once believed that in order to rely on plant
protein, you had to combine particular foods at every meal. We now
know this is not true. But in countering this myth, statements have
gone from "You don't need to combine proteins," to "Its
easy to get enough protein on a vegan diet" to the harmful "Its
impossible not to get enough protein!"

On average, vegans get enough protein. In fact, many people trying
a vegan diet may choose foods that are high in protein without knowing
it. Others may randomly choose foods that are not high in protein.
Personally, since I do not feel right when I'm not eating at least
a few protein-rich foods each day, I can see how someone else might
be ready to quit a vegan diet after a few days of not consuming some
protein-rich foods. I fear that many people quickly give up on a
vegan diet, thinking it made them feel bad, instead of realizing
they might have felt differently had they eaten more protein-rich
foods."

Similarly, eating enough calories might be an issue for an uninformed
person who decides to give the vegan diet a try for a few days. Someone
on the standard Western diet may only be aware of vegan foods that
are low in calories (i.e., salads, vegetables, fruit). Eating only
these foods for a day will likely leave someone unsatisfied and thinking
the vegan diet is to blame, when all they needed to do was eat more
high-calorie foods. Of course, many advocacy groups are actively
trying to educate people about the wide variety of satisfying vegan
foods. In promoting the diet, each person could help prepare potential
vegans for the real possibility that they won't feel good if they
don't choose some calorie-dense foods.

Less noticeable problems can arise due to misinformation. One can
select certain studies that support the idea that meat, eggs, and
dairy are the cause of osteoporosis, and that calcium intake is not
important. Because the arguments can sound impressive, someone might
take these claim as fact. Such a person might conclude that a vegan
diet must protect against osteoporosis, and that there is no need
for vegans to make sure they are getting plenty of calcium and vitamin
D. However, selectively choosing such studies leaves out the majority
of research published on the subject. Someone who evaluates more
of the research would likely conclude that vegans, like nonvegans,
should ensure good sources of calcium and vitamin D on a daily basis.

A Candid Discussion About the Vegan Diet

Few long-term, scientific studies have looked at true vegans.
A summary of the research on vegetarians and vegans is included in
this article. The research has not overwhelmingly supported the idea
that a vegan diet is vastly superior to a diet that includes meat
or a lacto-ovo vegetarian diet, and some vegans have found this to
contradict what they have always heard. How can this be explained?

Popular vegan literature has sometimes presented studies on groups
– such as lacto-ovo vegetarians, semi-vegetarians, cultures that
eat little meat, and people who have a high intake of fruits and
vegetables – as indications of the health status of vegans. Although
this can provide some useful information about some aspects of the
vegan diet, it cannot substitute for studying actual vegans.

Additionally, certain risk factors, such as cholesterol levels,
have been used to make projections about the health of vegans, but
these do not necessarily tell the whole story. For example, while
vegans' cholesterol levels tend to be very good, some vegans' low
vitamin B12 status can potentially increase their risk for heart
disease. Again, this is easily solved by ensuring a source of B12.

For a concise explanation of the different types of studies and
their pros and cons, please see the section "How are associations
between diet and disease established?" in Stephen Walsh's Briefing
Paper for the UK Vegan Society, Milk
and Breast Cancer.

There are real differences in how people respond to various diets.
While many people thrive on a vegan diet, it may not be so easy for
others. When someone is committed to reducing animal suffering, there
are often solutions to these dilemmas. Affirming everyones
experience is the first step in working with people towards a more
humane diet.

I would like to see vegan advocates promote the diet in such a way
that we minimize the chances of someone having a bad experience.
In so doing, I hope that future, long-term studies on vegans will
show us to have even better health than our meat-eating counterparts.
Promoting veganism as though there are no nutritional concerns may
initially attract more people; but we dont want people merely
to go vegan – we want them to stay vegan.

Position of the American Dietetic Association

In their 1997 position paper on vegetarian diets, the American Dietetic
Association states, "Scientific data suggest positive relationships
between a vegetarian diet and reduced risk for several chronic degenerative
diseases and conditions, including obesity, coronary artery disease,
hypertension, diabetes mellitus, and some types of cancer."

Summary of Health Benefits of a Vegetarian Diet

Health Benefits of a Vegetarian Diet, a 1999 paper co-authored by
two experts on the mortality rates of vegetarians, concludes:

Compared with non-vegetarians, Western vegetarians have a lower
mean BMI (by about 1 kg/m2), a lower mean plasma total cholesterol
concentration (by about 0.5 mmol/l [19 mg/dl]), and a lower mortality
from IHD [ischemic heart disease] (by about 25%). They may also
have a lower risk for some other diseases such as diverticular
disease, gallstones and appendicitis. No differences in mortality
from common cancers have been established. There is no evidence
of adverse effects on mortality. Much more information is needed,
particularly on other causes of death, osteoporosis, and long-term
health in vegans.